At the Pond at Dusk
by CageVenom
Summary: A very short story about a tender emotional moment. Aang tries to weasel his way out of earth-bending training. Toph, thinking to fool him, offers him the alternative of picking her toes for her.


Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar, have mercy on my cabbages.

"Stop it, twinkle-toes!" came from Toph's mouth, at first as a yelp, quickly hushed to an agitated whisper. She veered her head around, listening intently for any noises which might give away any intruders. Her lips contracted into a pout of frustration caused by her disappointment, as she examined her own reaction to the situation. Toph knew that, for all the casual undertone she had struggled to shove into this, she was being awfully twitchy about it.

Aang's fingers skillfully danced their way through Toph's toes, as he was in awe at how flustered she was. He'd been picking them for a whole of twenty seconds before beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, accompanied by a certain stiffness, beyond her usual reluctance. Though she was often brazen and straightforward, Aang's sensitive and observing manner allowed him to see past her immediate actions, to recognize Toph's somewhat hidden loneliness and insecurity. She put up a brave face, but an embarrassing situation like this was all it took for the crass and direct part of her personality to take a back seat. It made him see his friend in a different light and it was fascinating.

With elegant movements, he flicked and rubbed the debris out from between Toph's toes. Each touch shaded Toph's cheeks a deeper hue of pinkish red. Aang, who picked this between bad and worse, hadn't been enthusiastic about it initially, but as time wore on and Toph became more and more disheveled and bothered, he begun to take a fancy to it. Now, instead of abrupt and forceful movements like the sweeping of a straw broom on a stone porch, he gracefully glided like a shine-rag on parquet, tearing away at the dirt and dust on Toph's legs. The debris fell into the water he was kneeling in, and made a spreading dark, greenish-gray cloud. He was in almost meditative focus.

Toph, on the other hand, was having a very hard time concentrating. She was split, because while she insisted Aang pick her toes if he wanted to take the evening off from Earth-bending training, it wasn't exactly as pleasantly subversive as she had predicted. Only a few minutes ago, she had been sure that it was a great idea. She needed him to do as he was told, to trust her just enough to do the exercises she had planned for him, so that he could then gain trust in himself and continue his training.

"So," her line of thought went, "if he's got a choice between training Earth-bending and something basically akin to slavery, he's bound to choose the former."Aang, contrary to her expectations, understood her offer of having her toes picked as an easy way out. They'd had a pretty tough day and he probably supposed that Toph wasn't really up for training either, and put forth the offer as a way of maintaining her authority as a teacher, but still showing some mercy, though as she now looked at his focused expression, there was no telling what was actually going through his mind, neither now, nor when he accepted her alternative.

Aang had actually understood Toph's proposal primarily as simply asking for a favor. As if Toph really wanted to have her toes picked, and would look the other way with his training if he helped her out. He agreed to doing the favor, but intended to use it as bonding time. He figured that getting to know his teacher would benefit him greatly in his pursuits, but also understood that a teacher-student relationship wouldn't suffice as a foundation for a lasting friendship with Toph. If he wanted to be her friend as much as her student, he'd need to know more about her, and not just the subject she taught him.

It really did sound like a chore, though, so he wasn't particularly excited about it. Then, something unexpected happened. As he was picking Toph's toes, what seemed like a piece of her foot, a chip about the size of his thumbnail and as thick as a coin, fell off. The small cavity, about a centimeter below her big toe, which the chunk left behind, was pink on the bottom. Aang nervously glanced up at Toph, sweating bullets, hoping he hadn't hurt her. She seemed not to notice, so he turned back to her foot. Upon further inspection he came to a surprising conclusion. Toph's feet were covered by a thick layer of crushed dust and dirt, compacted together to form a sort of sole which guarded her actual feet from the terrain. Hiding under this protective layer must be Toph's bare feet. A sort of compulsive curiosity and focus came over him, as he undertook the cleaning process.

He used some very fine airbending to help himself along, gently prying piece after piece of the muddy shoe off of Toph's foot, revealing more and more pale skin. Between his fingers and some accurate airflow manipulation, her feet were bared of the dusty second skin rather quickly.

From where she sat on a rock, her legs reached down to about the height of his chin as he sat in a small pond. The spring wasn't too cold. Its clear water, broken by the occasional mossy rock, was comfortable enough to sit in. The pond was walled in on all sides by a high ridge, whose steep cliff on either side acted like a protective wall. A narrow canyon sliced into the ring behind where Aang was facing, down which a small stream flowed from the pond and towards the camp. The blue color of the sky was slowly fading to black as the sun reached the horizon, leaving the tight valley and the spring in gray twilight, with the tips of the jagged rocks ablaze with orange hues.

Aang's curiosity finally got the better of him and he gently poked Toph's now exposed skin. Much to his surprise, it was soft and smooth. Sensing danger, he ducked his head, as the foot exploded forward towards his face. Aang carefully looked up at Toph's scarlet face. Expecting anger and annoyance, he was taken aback when he found surprise and deep embarrassment clutching Toph's visage.

Turned slightly to the side, still upholding the slight pout, Toph's sightless eyes stared directly through him. Her blindness, however, did not seem to obscure his thoughts and intentions from her. Aang was sure that Toph could practically read his mind just through the arms placed palm-down on the rock at her sides. This wasn't exactly the case, though.

Aang stared intently back at Toph, his heart pounding in his chest, feeling the blood rushing to his head, but he didn't back down. He slowly extended his arm and very gently wrapped his fingers around her foot, her toes protruding between his index finger and thumb. Toph twitched so violently she nearly fell off the rock, only managing to catch herself by adjusting its shape.

She could now truly feel his heartbeat, though in a very different way. Where usually she could feel people's heartbeats from a distance, they were like the noises of dripping drops in a vast, empty space around her. She had to concentrate on them to locate them, and she could completely ignore them if she tried.

The heartbeat she heard now was different. Instead of a stalactite dripping somewhere in the cave, it was like a firm knocking on the front doors of her mind. A flurry of emotions, ranging from fear to anger, tried to bar the gates and stop Aang from entering, but the warmth of his hand persisted, stunning Toph and leaving her in a daze.

It was this warmth which creeped its way deeper into Toph's person than any probing questions and inquiries could. She felt exposed, as if under the influence of the likes of a truth serum - her body's reactions were autonomous and out of her control. Where she could hunker down and simply refuse to speak if a conversation went awry, this was different. Toph felt as if the boy cleaning her feet could see clearly through her essence as one could through the surface of a calm pond. Her blindness played a large role in feeling this way. She was unable to judge Aang's expression, but rather than the worst case scenario - revulsion or ridicule - it was the ambiguity and uncertainty which caused her to feel insecure.

Aang was more than somewhat entranced by his own actions. Though he couldn't consciously observe what was going on with Toph, failing to interpret her facial expression and instead continuing to curiously poke, then massage her bare feet, his body could sense, in a way, what Toph was experiencing. Unlike what Toph thought, he wasn't carefully judging her reaction, forging an opinion about her based on her reaction, he was struck, perhaps as much as her, by the events currently unfurling.

The Avatar felt how deeply spiritual and sensual the experience was, and lost in the sensation, failed to differentiate between himself, the girl before him, and the environment around them. Instead, his mind was like the slow twirling of a glittering mist. The general mood of the moment had completely consumed him.

In this sort of tense cloud, brought about by the situation, a small spark flicked in Aang's mind. He felt moved. As if a lasting, notable change was made to his entire view of the world. The way he sensed it first was by noticing how his vision focused again, from the blank stare the emotional experience had incurred. Then, he noticed what his eyes had caught on and he knew what was different. A shiver ran through his body as Aang, with little control of his body, slowly leaned his head towards Toph's foot. As he neared it, a feeling of mixed fear and excitement erupted in a whirlpool in his stomach. The deafening toil of his heart rang in his ears, as the exhilarating feeling grew to his throat. He gently placed his lips on her foot and softly kissed it. Covered in the thin veil of a moment settling into their memories, perhaps forever, still sat Toph and the Avatar, with their minds resonating as one.

A/N: Thank you for reading. I hope you've enjoyed my story. If you find any grammatical mishaps, I'll be thankful if you tip me off about them.

Have a wonderful day.


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